Rising Tide 6: A conference on the future of New Orleans
Xavier University
August 27, 2011
"The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery. It's for everyone who loves New Orleans and is working to bring a better future to all its residents.
Leveraging the power of bloggers and new media, the conference is a launch pad for organization and action. Our day-long program of speakers and presentations is tailored to inform, entertain, enrage and inspire.
We come together to dispel myths, promote facts, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels. We aim to be a "real life" demonstration of internet activism as we continue to recover from a massive failure of government on all levels.
Rising Tide started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of the city when a small group of New Orleans-based bloggers decided to expand their on-line advocacy for the rebirth of New Orleans into a public event.
"
Last year’s program, reported on pt at large, was as advertised – inspiring, provocative, informative. Today’s program is ambitious. For the first time, video of the program is online.
Most of the attendees are already up to their digital elbows in some form of advocacy for the Crescent City. The auditorium was a glow with laptops, iPads, iPhones, flashes from digital cameras, and readouts from the video camera that recorded the entire event. The event is a labor of love. Everyone from event coordinator Kim Marshall to the people handing out nametags is a volunteer.
New Orleans history is much like its food and music. It has an astonishing ability to absorb influences from immigrating cultures without ruffling its own unique feathers. Every member of every panel is invested in some way shape or form in the growth and preservation of New Orleans, retaining the traditional, and absorbing the new, with a twist that always puts the stamp of New Orleans upon it.
In order to not reinvent the wheel, check this link with a summary of the day's program written by New Orleans native “Maringouin,” a contributor to NOLAFemmes, a group blog comprised of women who live, love and work in and around the New Orleans area.
Rising Tide 6 had an ambitious schedule:
In general, the day felt like trying to drink from a fire hose. Let's take Richard Campanella, who jump started the morning presenting “how new Orleanians came to perceive, delineate, name––and argue about––the neighborhoods of their city.”
Campanella raced through an extraordinarily rich analysis of the creation of neighborhoods, the layout of the city from the 1700s to the present day, in a wonderfully kaleidoscopic web, focusing his lens on municipalities, wards, ethnicity/race, planning districts census tracts, official city designations, historic districts churches/schools, landmarks, planning districts, and neighborhoods.
All of this with a well chosen collection of visuals, maps, graphs, charts, and photographs that managed to stay focused like a laser beam on his subject. Campanella is clearly passionate and steeped in the knowledge of about 20 years of study.
To understand what makes New Orleans so divinely complicated it’s important to have some working knowledge of how it has been developed and the people who were driving forces in that development.
This was a fabulous presentation. Overwhelming in a good sort of way, the way that makes me want open Campanella’s Bienville’s Dilemma or ask the locals I meet lots of questions on my next visit.
One of Campanella's best comments of the day: “accept the possibility of multiple truths.” When considering New Orleans, that’s the best operating principle.
The video of Campanella’s keynote speech is right here!
The second keynote speaker of the day was David Simon, creator of the TV show “The Wire, ” among others. His series “Tremé” is now in its second season.
The takeaway:
The main thrust of his hour long talk was the notion of “standing,” in particular by using the standard of ad hominem, to reduce somebody else’s voice when they don’t like the message…arguing not against the content but against the person.” When Treme was first proposed, some doubted Simon had the background to tell the story with authenticity. The “ad hominem” argument went something like, “who is he to write something about New Orleans, he doesn’t even live here.”
“Standing is the lamest way of reducing genuine debate and discussion in our politics, our culture, our society,” he said. He’s seen this since his days as a reporter in Baltimore. “Your job is to ask stupid questions. You walk into any story as a person who doesn’t know enough. Did you do your homework? Are you genuinely curious? Are you speaking facts that you know to be facts? That’s it. That’s the only standard I require.” Simon spent the rest of the hour refining this argument with examples related to writing and producing the multi stranded series Tremé. Fascinating stuff.
Re-Capping The Well: the BP Deepwater Horizon well blow-out:
Panel: Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade; David Hammer, award-winning reporter for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans; Dr. Len Bahr, former director of the Governor's Applied Coastal Science Program; Drake Toulouse, BP and Gulf Coast Claims Facility critic; Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
The takeaway:
The overwhelming sentiment from the panel is that change from legislators in Louisiana and Washington is unlikely since well-embedded American Petroleum Industry calls the shots. The second sentiment, spoken most persuasively by Bob Marshal is that voters in southern Louisiana are unlikely to press for significant change in the way drilling is conducted if it affects their jobs.
“It’s ironic that Republican president Richard Nixon ushered through the Clean Water Act and the EPA and now Republicans are attempting to dismantle the agencies. Can’t we be pro-gun and pro-environment? A cleaner environment would lead to better hunting and better fishing.” Marshall commented to me as the panel left the stage.
Social Media, Social Justice Panel:
Panelists: Jordan Flaherty, award winning reporter from the Gulf Coast; Mary Joyce, digital activist; Jimmy Huck, Jr, professor at Tulane University; Stephen Ostertag, sociologist at Tulane University currently researching the growing social organization of bloggers and its implications for the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and information.
The takeaway:
Jordan Flaherty says that Al Jazeera and Democracy Now have no corporate sponsors and more freedom to write with more objectivity. Steven Ostertag, sociologist at Tulane University, said newspapers nowadays have no resources to write narratives about neighborhoods or prisons, or hospitals outside the corporate model. Ostertag and Huck agreed that’s where Facebook and Twitter come into the picture. Ostertag said the worst thing is to be paralyzed. He suggested taking initial small steps. “Like something on Facebook, visit a web page, write an email, bring water to a meeting but DO something."
New Orleans Food - Continuity and Change Panel
Panelists: Food columnists Rene Louapre, freelance writer Todd Price, chef/owners Chris DeBarr and Adopho Garcia, and gourmet food truck owner/chef Alex del Castillo got into a spirited debate about New Orleans food.
The takeaway:
No city can become a great food city without the influence of “new blood” who take in tradition and are not afraid to add their own spin on it. Before Katrina, New Orleans was insular, after Katrina food culture has expanded. New Orleans chefs respect tradition but are fearless when it comes to tinkering with it or setting it on its ear.
Young people who move here are on a mission to contribute to the city and can make a difference in reshaping the city.
Chefs who come here give up opportunities to cook in more prestigious cities - never mind that a New Orleans chef hasn't been featured on "America's Top Chefs".
For New Orleanians, preparing and eating food is part of family tradition and civic pride.
Brass. New Orleans. Music.
Writer Deborah Cotton, “Big Red Cotton,” gets stories from Band Director of Roots of Music; Alejandro de los Rios, producer of the Brass Roots documentary and three members of the TBC Brass Band
The takeaway:
Mentorship is the key to bringing up the next generation of young musicians. Being involved in music programs keeps kids off the streets, teaches them a skill they can use to make a living, and offers them structure they can't get anywhere else. Lawrence Rawlins’ Roots of Music program is a perfect example of this and the city of New Orleans benefits from having the music tradition taught and moved forward. The three young musicians from TBC Brass Band testified in words and music how the program is succeeding.
The panels dealing with Re-Capping The Well; Social Media, Social Justice; The New Orleans Food – Continuity and Change; Brass Bands, New Orleans Music were filled with people who know what they’re talking about, who have standing not just because they live here but because they are honest, straight shooters, and are activists in the way they connect with the public, whether through advocating for justice and equity, or exposing fraud and corporate and political malfeasance, or describing the cultures of music and food.They are all part of the evolving culture of post-Katrina New Orleans.
I would jump at the chance to have a beer with any of the men or women who presented today. If you watch the videos, you'll have a great crash course in New Orleans history, food, music, economy, politics, social fabric, and state of mind.
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Xavier University campus; Vendors setting up in hopes of selling books about every possible Louisiana and New Orleans subject from wetlands to history to culture to popular anthology, and vendors selling jewelry, earrings, bracelets, T-shirts, fragrant herbal soaps, and tables full of materials having to do with organizations that are represented here today.
Kim Marshall convenes Rising Tide 6; The TBC Brass Band serenades the audience, an exclamation mark to conclude Rising Tide 6.
pt finally meets Deborah Cotton, with whom he's had email contact for two years, in person. Ms. Cotton colorfully chronicles second line parades, brass bands, and the men (mostly) who begin them and keep the tradition alive.
The Skinny on Obesity Ain't Pretty
Just sayin’…
An obesity pill?
Today’s headline in Business Week cites that the stock prices of companies developing obesity pills soared when the FDA approved Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.’s to resume development of its obesity pills.
World-wide (no pun intended) the population is becoming overweight and obese. Check this story in today’s New York Times.
In America, 28 percent of the adult population is obese and 68 percent is overweight. That’s topped by a smidgeon by Mexico - 30 percent of the adult population is obese and 70 percent is overweight.
This is crazy. Why aren’t these statistics (largely responsible for the dramatic rise in diabetes) cited in the debate on health care costs? And when they are, why do we primarily blame the consumer for weight gain? Yes, people aren’t forced to put the food in their mouths. And yes, they’re not tied to trees so they can’t exercise every day.
But follow the money. The Center for Responsive Politics says American Beverage Association spent $18,850,000 to lobby for their products (we're not talking sparkling water here).
Obesity pills might be a windfall for pharmaceutical companies but they are not the solution. Until Congress - and people like you and me - put the heat on the food and beverage industry to produce more healthy products and to spend their big bucks convincing people to consume them, no one’s going to lose weight anytime soon.
September 22, 2011 in Commentaries | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)